Wi-SUN Alliance announced Monday the mark of a strong year of growth in its membership and a number of major milestones, including the launch of its FAN certification program and its initial FAN certified products.
Global membership, which includes service providers, product vendors, utilities, municipalities, local government, academia and other enterprises, has grown with 50 new members joining in the past 12 months, taking total membership to 227.
Rethink Technology Research estimates that companies in the Wi-SUN ecosystem will see compound annual growth of 20 percent, as mesh network technology reaches into new verticals, including telecoms, and different business models emerge.
Wi-SUN Alliance also welcomed Trilliant, vendor of secure, enterprise-wide smart energy communications solutions, as a new promoter member and to the Wi-SUN Alliance Board.
The Wi-SUN Alliance is a global non-profit member-based association made up of companies that aim to drive the global proliferation of interoperable wireless solutions for use in smart cities, smart grids and other Internet of Things (IoT) applications using open global standards from organizations, such as IEEE802, IETF, TIA, TTC and ETSI.
With over 200 members worldwide, membership of the Wi-SUN Alliance is open to all industry stakeholders and includes silicon vendors, product vendors, services providers, utilities, universities, enterprises and municipalities and local government organizations.
Wi-SUN Alliance has also seen its influence grow, with more than 91 million Wi-SUN capable devices awarded globally as service providers and city developers deploy new IoT applications and services for smart cities and utilities. Cities including the City of London, Copenhagen, Glasgow, Paris and Miami use a Wi-SUN compatible network, with Wi-SUN regarded as the communications infrastructure of choice for very large-scale rollouts. It is increasingly specified by utilities and city developers to enable interoperable, multi-service and secure wireless networks.
Wi-SUN Alliance offers four levels of membership: Promoters, Contributors, Observers and Adopters, and has members in over 25 countries, including Asia Pacific (Australia, China, India, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan), the Americas (Brazil, Canada, Mexico, USA), Europe (Denmark, Finland, France, Spain, Sweden, UK) and South Africa.
Membership is open to all industry stakeholders, and includes silicon chip vendors, product vendors, services providers, utilities, universities, enterprises, municipalities and local government organizations.
October 2018 marked the launch of the Wi-SUN Field Area Networks (FAN) Certification Program, which certifies devices for use by utilities and service providers to simplify and support large-scale, outdoor networks for smart cities and other IoT rollouts. Wi-SUN certifies products based on their compliance to a communications profile derived from open standards and their ability to interoperate with other Wi-SUN certified products.
February 2019 saw the first Wi-SUN FAN certified products come to market, from Cisco, Itron, Kyoto University, Landis+Gyr, Nissin Systems, Renesas and ROHM, many of which were displayed publicly for the first time at industry event, DistribuTECH in the US.
The Wi-SUN Alliance announced in February that the first wave of members have completed interoperability testing to become the first solutions to achieve Wi-SUN FAN certification. The solutions from Cisco, Itron, Nissin Systems, Kyoto University, Landis+Gyr, Renesas and ROHM address the needs of utilities, city developers and other service providers to simplify and support large-scale, outdoor networks for smart cities, smart utilities and other IoT rollouts.
Wi-SUN FAN is a communications infrastructure for very large-scale networks, enabling many devices to interconnect on one common network. All Wi-SUN certified products were rigorously tested by Allion Test Labs in Taiwan, the first test lab to achieve Wi-SUN FAN 1.0 validation, to ensure the devices worked together effortlessly and securely to ensure rapid time to market.
Upon test completion, approved products are permitted to display the Wi-SUN Certified FAN logo, which indicates to users that these products are compliant with open standards, interoperable, secure and scalable and can be deployed with confidence.
Wi-SUN Alliance and Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) announced plans to work together to maximize interoperability, portability, security and privacy for the industrial Internet.
“We have been quietly going about our business for many years, but this past 12 months has seen much of this work come to fruition,” said Phil Beecher, president and CEO of Wi-SUN Alliance. “With higher IoT adoption rates, particularly with smart city and utilities increasingly rolling out applications such as advanced metering infrastructure, distribution automation, and smart home automation, Wi-SUN Alliance members are seeing growing demand for their products.
“The launch of Wi-SUN FAN and the first FAN-certified products is a game changer in the market, and we are seeing growing interest from organizations around the world wanting to be part of our unique and influential ecosystem. We’re at the forefront of wireless communications innovation in cities, utilities and other industries and will continue to be so as the market matures.”
